Snapshots
by LunaNotLoony
Summary: Clearing his old room, Sirius finds a photo album from long ago. ONESHOT


He'd found the photo album in the cascading piles of junk that he had filled the room up with over the years when his room had been a rubbish pile for the family. The album had been in a drawer, pages bent back, stuffed in roughly. Sirius was surprised that Kreacher hadn't burned it.

The pages were mustardy and yellowing. He recognised the scrawl on the first page as James' and smiled as he tried to decipher it. James had always claimed that his handwriting was quirky, but had struggled to read his own notes.

_The Marauder Book of Photos, Pranks and Parties_

_By Wormtail, Moony, Padfoot and Prongs_

They had slaved over it! Sirius grinned. Hadn't they been in their third year, or was it fourth, when Remus arrived clutching a shining, leather-bound book. Slightly unwillingly, Moony had donated it to the marauders, after making them (or particularly Sirius) promise that there'd be no porn in it. He wanted to show it to his parents.

Sirius turned the page, prising them apart. They were stuck together and there was definite stench of firewhiskey. It had been the first time they'd gone out drinking, sneaking through the passages, into the village. At first, Moony had tried to convince them not to, but as nervous giggles rose in their throats, he gave it up. It felt so cool to go to the Hog's Head and order a round of firewhiskey, with a nonchalant grin.

The picture was faded but Sirius couldn't fail to recognise the love-struck expression on James' face, the flash of scarlet hair at the edge of the picture. Peter was standing just behind James, snickering, looking utterly at home with the marauder's mishaps. _Go crawl into a hole and die, Wormtail._

He had captioned the picture though. His handwriting was a hundred times more superior to Prong', and he could clearly read it.

_Little Lovesick Jamesie here, wailing after his dearest most perfectest darling lover (in his dreams) Evans._

I felt weird, seeing himself calling Lily "Evans". In their final years, she had become one of his closest friends. Throughout his school career, he'd been certain that she was nothing more than a pretty, but geeky stick-up-her-arse girl, and that it was her looks alone which attracted James to her. But at some point, he'd started referring to her as Lily, laughing at her kickass putdowns, enjoying her opinionated attitude, her jokes, and her company.

Now she was dead, and so was James, at the hands of the mousy haired boy laughing behind her. His face was pale and freckly, and his mouth frozen open in a snigger. How many years would it be before that same boy was laughing the same nervous laugh, eyes fixed on Sirius this time, about to blow the street open and transform. Sirius wanted to destroy that laugh on the page, but the moment was one of the only ones he had left.

The next picture was of a crowd, lolloping around on a picnic mat, grinning. Sirius grinned back into his own eyes. This one was moving, and the Sirius winked, gesturing to the sandwiches with a smirk. He remembered that prank- it had been hilarious. Lily had screamed as she turned into a large, red-haired beach balled, then tried to stuff a sandwich down James' throat. It had worked! Too shocked by Lily's hand on his face, he hadn't struggled and had inflated too! They had laughed and laughed until they were full of bubbles and the moon.

This one was captioned too. Sirius didn't know the handwriting immediately, and peered closer to read it.

_Fuk you, you ugly blood traitors and mudbloods go die you bastard with your mudblood slut_

His arm had been draped over a petite black girl with the warmest eyes he'd ever seen. He couldn't remember her name, but she was slumping backwards into his arm, laughing, holding one of the pranked sandwiches. She must have been a muggle-born. Perhaps she was murdered in the war, or fled with her family, because he'd never seen her after that photo.

_Fuk you, you ugly blood traitors and mudbloods go die you bastard with your mudblood slut_


End file.
